


Love Notes from the Man in the Tan Jacket

by strangelock



Series: 30 Day Valelock Challenge [2]
Category: Dark City (1998), Sherlock (TV), The Prisoner (1967), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Asexual Sherlock, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangelock/pseuds/strangelock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, episode 14, The Man in the Tan Jacket and prompt #30, Love Notes from wintergrey's 30 Day OTP Challenge for the Fluff-Impaired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Notes from the Man in the Tan Jacket

The thing is, it is't a deerskin suitcase at all. 

There _was_ a deerskin case, carefully chosen, meticulously packed, helpfully supplied by the Hooded Figures, but it is now banished to the far corner of fake-Baker Street. Not-Sherlock, clearly offended on sight, had tossed it there and then promptly deleted it. 

Instead, Frances Donaldson down at the antiques mall sold him a British Army battle bag.  Hard sides of rough, faded, army brown canvas; smooth leather straps, soft with age —the kind you had to patiently thread and buckle; and a bold white cross. It had been designed for the field medic and shaped to hold specific items; some to save a life, some to take one, and, if you were lucky, some for remembering why you were carrying it to begin with. Of course, that's not what it contains now...

It also isn't a tan jacket. There are some things that even the strongest imprint cannot force Sherlock Holmes to do. One of these things is to wear tan jackets. 

These facts do not stop the general public of Night Vale from remembering only a tan jacket and a deerskin suitcase, just as they were imprinted to report. Mycroft must be furious, the Hooded Figures: confused. 

John is bursting with giddy affection.

It reminds him of the day he came 'home' to fake-Baker Street to find a skull on the mantelpiece, exactly where it belonged, as if it had been there the whole time (just like the one he fears he’ll never see again). 

When asked about it, Not-Sherlock happily launches into a tale of adventure and intrigue, even in front of Mycroft: the 'vague yet menacing government agency' himself, the architect of the vast experiment that is Night Vale, Not-Sherlock's boss (and isn't Mycroft smug about that one). 

It starts with a pleasant visit to the library (never mind that he can't remember how he got there). Sherlock's love of knowledge is one of those things the imprints can't argue with if they hope to survive. Unfortunately, the loud sobbing, and distractingly mad scrambling of the other patrons compelled Not-Sherlock to climb the bookcases like a ladder. (John would later picture him stretched out along his front, atop the stacks, child-like, legs bent, heel clicking.)

The John of London might have remonstrated Sherlock's apparent lack of compassion. This John —the one who knows Mycroft’s imprints exaggerate Sherlock’s carelessness with others, just to spite him— this John could only stare, rage at Mycroft’s cruel neglect, marvel at Sherlock’s _obliviously_ _elegant_ escape: from the rat trap experiment, from the windowless, doorless Night Vale Public Library. Most people are carried out unconscious (or worse) and then “re-educated,” re-imprinted.

When the sobbing turned to screaming, Not-Sherlock went in search of an empty room, preferably one with a door, and instead found his way to the archives: the Night Vale Ossuary. (Not-Sherlock says these words slowly, with solemnity.) John wishes he could have seen it himself; not just the skulls, but Sherlock: engrossed, for hours, reading every skull better than most people read books. 

He brought home the skull of an army doctor, named it Hamish, placed it reverently on their mantelpiece. 

Not-Sherlock does not remember that John was an army doctor, late of Her Majesty's Army, attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers; undoubtedly Mycroft’s design. Not-Sherlock only knows John to be his co-worker at the Night Vale General Hospital, the administrator of Neurological Research, his flatmate, his friend.

The bag, the skull, they are trophies, rebellions, love notes - depending on the Sherlock, but for every Sherlock, too. They are all love notes to John: every one of Not-Sherlock's substitutions, all of his choices not befitting the imprint, every time a tiny bit of Sherlock bleeds through. 

Like now.

Not-Sherlock is trotting up the stairs, preceded by a lazy swarm of honeybees, which settle about the flat here and there. It took John a few days to figure it out, that they unerringly find and block all of Mycroft's cameras, even when they’ve been moved, even though Not-Sherlock isn’t aware of the cameras. 

Not-Sherlock glides into his chair, places the open battle bag at his feet, beams at John. John beams back.

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is part of a larger fusion that I haven’t published yet. In short, it puts John and Sherlock, post-Reichenbach, in Dark City—in this case, Night Vale—and the Strangers—Hooded Figures—imprint people with new lives and memories as they see fit. Sherlock is one of these people. John is not. Mycroft is (working with) the vague yet menacing government agency. A creepy, characterless replica of 221b Baker Street was built in Night Vale for John and Not-Sherlock to inhabit. I publish this mostly to hold myself accountable to practicing with smallish, semi-contained fics.


End file.
